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Biographical history

Debby (Deborah) Yaffe is a feminist, activist and retired University of Victoria Department of Women’s Studies senior instructor. Yaffe (née Frisch) was born in 1943 and grew up in Southern California. She attended University of Southern California Los Angeles in the 1960s. Taking her husband’s last name, Gregory, she and her husband lived in Europe with their son, moving to London in the 1970s. It was there, while working as a teacher, that Yaffe became involved in the women’s movement through her attendance at consciousness-raising group meetings. She subsequently formed her own group and took part in feminist actions. Yaffe later returned to the United States on her own and eventually settled in Victoria, British Columbia, with her family. After her divorce, she took her mother’s maiden name, Yaffe. In Victoria, she volunteered with Everywomen's Books, worked as a paid staff member for the local office of the Victoria Status of Women Action Group, from 1986 to 1988, and was involved in organizing around key issues such as abortion rights.<br>Yaffe was approached to teach Introduction to Women’s Studies at the University of Victoria in 1990 and she retired in 2004. She holds a master’s degree in Women’s Studies and is a 2001 recipient of UVic Alumni Association’s award for excellence in teaching. Yaffe is one of the founders, along with former university archivist Jane Turner, of the Victoria Women’s Movement Archives at UVic Archives. Yaffe’s publications include:</br><br>“Feminism in principal and in practice: Everywomans Books,” <i>Atlantis</i> V. 21, NO. 1 (Fall, 1996) 154-157;“Introducing Jewish feminist thought in a women's studies classroom,” <i>Canadian Woman Studies</i>, V. 16, NO. 4 (Fall, 1996), 56-59</br>

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Item consists of sound recordings of Debby Yaffe discussing her childhood, schooling and family life in California, including gendered family roles, expectations of femininity in the 1950s, university, marriage and life in Europe, her feminist consciousness raising experience in London, teaching high school in London, the differences between English and American societies, sex discrimination, radical feminist activities, restructuring of sexual relationships, life in Canada and involvement in the Women’s movement in Victoria, Status of Women Action group, Everywomens Books, disordered eating as feminist issue, work as a fitness instructor, abortion rights, impact on feminist awareness of the December 6, 1989 killings at École Polytechnique in Montréal, radical feminism, women’s lives in Canada and England, life as a lesbian, resisting dominant domestic relationship constructs, teaching Women’s Studies, feminist theory, and the Victoria Women’s Movement Archives.

The Debby Yaffe interview was conducted by Joy Fisher as a research project in the course History 358A, “Women in Canada,” taught by Dr. Lynne Marks, which covered histories of women in Canada from the era of New France to the present. Fisher’s resulting essay is entitled “Riding the Wave/ Watching the Wave: A Second Wave Feminist Talks about Gender Ideologies and her Life.”